Ruiz Suspended 25 Games for Adderall Use

Ruiz set career-highs in 2012 in eight offensive categories. Did Adderall aid that?

According to tweets from both Matt Gelb and Todd Zolecki, Carlos Ruiz has been suspended 25 games for the use of amphetamines, specifically Adderall.

In his story, Gelb says “the suspension was triggered by Ruiz’s second positive test for the stimulant.” The Phillies will be without him until April 28 and it will cost him about $750,000 in salary.

He’s the second high-profile Phillie nailed this year for the use of a banned substance, with Freddy Galvis being the first during the summer. This one might catch some people by surprise, although Ruiz did have by far his best season as a major leaguer.

Are you shocked by this? Do you care if Ruiz has illegally taken Adderall as a way to get through a long season?

The Phillies issued this statement regarding the suspension:

”The Phillies fully support Major League Baseball’s Drug Program. We are disappointed by the news of this violation of the program. We will support Carlos in an appropriate manner and move forward to achieve our goal to play championship-caliber baseball in 2013.”

“I am sincerely regretful for my mistake in taking a prohibited stimulant. I apologize to my teammates, the Phillies organization, and the Philadelphia fans. I will serve the imposed 25-game suspension to begin the season and I look forward to returning to the field and working toward bringing a championship back to Philadelphia in 2013.”

No question he was seeing the ball a lot better. Disappointing. Wonder if he will return to his lifetime avgs. Phils would have liked to know before putting down $5 million. IT IS a PED, Second test! That is really stupid.

Last year, May or soi, when the Mets were having their way with the Phils, on I guess a Mets blog, there were some comments about Chooch and how could he not be playing so well all of a sudden without the aid of something. I’d call it a shot in the dark, but it was worth a pause for thought. It’s really too bad.

I didn’t post it a couple weeks back when Tom Verducci wrote an SI.com piece on the new wave of steroids because not only do I not have much interest in that subject, but I assume others don’t. But if you are interested, though I never read the piece, the criminals are trying to stay ahed of the posse still. Can’t say Im surprised.

I guess I don’t really care, but the statement attributed to Chooch doesn’t sound to moving. Yeah, he owned up to what he did, but I assume he knew what he was doing.

I don’t care that he took it. I do care that he got caught because of the negative impact on the team being without him for the first 25 games. Maybe a 25 game vacation at the beginning of the season will keep him fresh and he won’t need Adderall to get through the season.

Anyone know what a TUE is? Some sort of permission?
In Gelb’s piece it says-

“Two Phillies currently on the 40-man roster, Kevin Frandsen and Zach Collier, were suspended in the minors for using Ritalin and Adderall, respectively. Both have since sought TUEs for ADHD.”

I’m pissed at Ruiz, I can’t be a phony and contradict myself. I was pissed about Melky Cabrera and Ryan Braun, and I am just as pissed about Galvis and Ruiz too. I know these amphetamines were rampant in Schmidt’s days, he freely admits that, but now you can’t do this stuff anymore. Baseball has made it clear, unless you really are ADHD, you just can’t. If you do, you are cheating.

Let’s face it..bottom line…he was busted for doing speed not for some dietary powder from GNC. And for a second time? REALLY stupid! Yeah, you can argue that technically Adderall isn’t speed. But, its a performance enhancer that is for sure. And, it’s prohibited and that’s that.

I say MLB doesn’t go far enough! When are they gonna get around to banning all stimulants? I mean, we can’t have these drug fiends downing a few extra-strength lattes with a Red Bull chaser just to get an edge, you know? I demand they crack down on this scourge of cheating!

GMAFB.

That said, while I think the rules against “banned substances” are completely idiotic, it’s also stupid to get caught a second time, although we don’t know the exact situation involved here so it’s hard fire up my righteous indignation meter too high. (Galvis, for example, said his steroid levels were miniscule, at which concentrations it’s technically possible to ingest banned substances inadvertently in other meals/supplements/etc.)

I’ve always thought the banned substances rules were ridiculous, too. Given the amount of hormones and additives pumped into cattle probably anyone could test positive for something after eating a large steak dinner. There are also “organic” teas which can produce some strange things that show up in urine. Someone from a foreign country may inadvertently consume banned substances taking medicine for some health condition, because some of those countries are lax in their regulations.

The other thing that burns me up about the testing is that the actual substances and amounts are rarely identified. Taking something to keep from falling apart from exhaustion is therefore lumped with Steroids, HGH, and anything else. The player who’s taken an upper (and we all take them, from Red Bull to coffee, to Cola) is shunned by the public just as much as the one who has beefed himself up with hormones and steroids.

I don’t like drug use, but at the same time, I don’t like the testing, either. It seems to pick out some rather minor offenses and doesn’t seem to recognize the term “false positive.” The only appeal ever won (Braun) was pretty bogus, and busting people for GNC’s umarked ingredients (Romero) was plain BS.

That said, when a person is warned about something and does it again, it is totally stupid, disgusting, and uncalled for. Ruiz should be ashamed of himself, and that didn’t really come through in his statement, which was no more than the standard malarky spouted by every other violator of the rules. If he truly had regrets, he should have heeded the first warning about this banned substance.

So they should allow players to buy unmarked bottles at GNC lol…that’s like saying I didn’t know what was in that pill I bought from that guy or I didn’t know what he was shooting into my ass, I didn’t ask.

This is the dumbest thing I’ve heard today. Ryan Braun used actual steroids or HGH/whatever that is actually cheating and didn’t get suspended a game because of some loophole in the amount of days the evidence took to ship, and now Chooch who is a great guy, hard worker and good teammate loses out on not only a lot of money with a contract year coming up, but 25 games for something stupid like Adderall which I am prescribed and take every day for “Adult ADD” for college and the only advantage I could possibly think of this giving a player is during the long haul of a season especially catching everyday, to just have a little extra energy to make it through the day and be at your best, not to “hit the ball better with super focus or w.e” or add power because that’s ridiculous. Chooch works his tail off if he wants a little extra energy to make it through the day so when he gets home he can still give it to his wife or gf without passing out then by all means he deserves it, his only mistake was not going to any doctor with a hand to write him a script for it. If I can get it very easily in the state of PA, I am sure as heck that Chooch can get it legally as well.

WTF ! the phils are jinxed, the eagles, the flyers, the sixers. i don’t know man. i go to bed thinking WTF i wake up and think WTF ! and just when you think everything has fallen and you say to yourself what the heck else could happen now? that’s when you stub you toe on the coffee table and your wife sarcastically says THAT’s what could happen! and you think WTF !

This was sad news for my entire family. My wife wants to set fire to her Chooch jersey and somehow I had to explain to my kids what Chooch did. He has truly been a hero and role model to my kids and this was just difficult news for them to hear. It’s disappointing to us since he knew and understood the rules, but still went ahead and broke them. Will this consequence be enough to make him stop or could he possibly be addicted?

Will the fans still chant CHOOOOOOOCH when he returns or could he possibly be booed for a bit?

Uhhhh… I think waaaaaay too much is being made of this. While probably a dumb thing he did since he was caught before…. this in NOT the end of the world as we know it. And I’m pretty sure that CHOOOOOOOCH will be heard loud and clear during gane #26 of the season. Oh, and tell your wife that if she really wants to burn her Ruiz jersey that I’ll take it instead. I’m not gonna let a few ADD pills get in the way of rooting for one of the greatest Phillies of our generation.

You guys are going a bit overboard on this. As I stated above, I’m pissed about it, but only because it has the “potential” to hurt the team for the first 25 games. Tell her to keep the Jersey (or give it to Chuck), she’ll be glad she did.

Sure the fans will still chant Chooch. And in other circumstances now, he’ll hear some wrath rather than get an automatic pass. At least he will unless he does better than a stoick press release “apologizing,” if you wanna call it that.

Let’s assume there’s something deeper than surface pain that lasts beyond a day in your family regarding disappointment in Chooch. There’s a silver lining in many clouds. A valuble lesson can come out of this. If you choose to idolize a public image, understand that it’s a public image, and you subject yourself to the disppointments that might come out of it.

I don’t think people are going overboard in their disappointment. But that doesn’t have to be a long term thing. I’d be wary, more than quick to byoass the anger knowing I’ll be as fired up about Chooch so fast. I will, but it’s stupid to look to that point so fast. Bases loaded, playoffs on the line, what am I gonna do, thnk uppers? It’ll pass when it’s time.

“It masks fatigue, masks pain, increases arousal — like being in The Zone,” Wadler told Stone.”It increases alertness, aggressiveness, attention and concentration. It improves reaction time, especially when fatigued. Some think it enhances hand-eye coordination. Some believe it increases the mental aspects of performance.”

Wadler, an associate professor of medicine at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, described Adderall as “one of the quintessential performance-enhancing drugs. There’s no question it’s a performance-enhancing drug.”

I’m a baseball fan, not a drug student, so I ask this with limited interest, but from the description in Jeff’s post preceding the link, if this drug is so helpful, how’s it only get ya 25 games instead of 50? It sounds like a real enhancer to me.

I would guess that it’s because it’s been fairly recent that athletes have begun using Adderall as a PED. MLB drug testing and punishments will always be an evolving process and is usually only modified with each CBA. There’s always a newer drug right around the corner.

The better answer is because “steroids” carry a stigma that “stimulants” don’t to the average fan, and that’s what MLB’s drug policy is intended to do; allay the fears of the casual fan who thinks some of this stuff is somehow cheating. Stimulants have been around for decades, and MLB players have been using them for as long as they’ve been around. “Greenies” were endemic throughout the the last 40 years of baseball.

There is no real logical reason for it other than that. There’s actually very little proof that steroids actually enhance performance, yet they’re treated as if they’re some sort of magic elixir. It’s silly.

Bonds and Sosa, along with Clemens, are on the HOF ballot. I say if Ty Cobb can kill a man and Shoeless Joe Jackson can help overthrow a World Series … then these guys, along with McGwire, et al should be voted in.

Yes, Jeff, the things Sosa, MacGuire, Clemens et. al. did were certainly legitimate. Barry Bonds is unequivocally the greatest hitter of our generation, and perhaps of all time. They outperformed their peers, many of whom were taking the same substances, and they did it against pitchers, many of whom were taking the same substances.

Much as I got a kick out of watching Sammy Sosa’s act and results at the time, any mention of possible extraneous factors counting toward home run records getting blitzed has to include the fact that The Slammin’ One got caught with a corked bat. Now of course he was only caught once, just like Orenthal was only caught whacking a wife once, so it’s silly to presume The Juice (what a nicely coincidental nickname) iced anyone else during his days as a free man.

It’s amazing, the common denominator of the subjects in this thread. We move from Killer OJ to would be killer Cobb, which came up off the would be felon Shoeless Joe. Joe, of course, talent wise, is a unanimous HOF guy to everyone, even though none of us saw him play. And I’m on board with that as well. But in looking at the back of his baseball card, despite all sorts of tremendous marks, and I understand the era, but it is totally weird to see only 52 career rips. Four straight years of 1.000 plus OPS ina prime that included 4 straight .551 or more slug pct years, but only 52 career dingers. Boy, does that show how freaking awesome The Babe was.

Having seen the thread go from Chooch on a Phillies blog to regurgitating the Bonds-Sosa-Clemens debate, I’d like to tie it into yesterday’s already controversial HOF ballot, results to be announced come January. This is a Phillie story, though you have to have a memory to remember Curt (known in some circles as “Dinner For One” because he yakked so much that he didn’t need a conversation partner) Schilling who was a True Phillie because he played for both the Phils and Astros, thee prereq for being a True Phillie.

Schill, early on was a debatable candidate for a long term career, and NOT a HOF debate. If fhe does get voted in, he would make for an interesting secndary debate about which cap gets plaque honors. He pitched for some Phillie clubs that produced memoirs of the 1973 10-9-8-76ers (9 up, 73 down), later joined forces to gain a ring with Randay Johnson in an imitation of the Koufax-Drysdale tandem that might have superceded the original version, and sported blood on a sock that capped a sweep after coming back from the run of the mill drill of trailing the Yanks 3-0 in ALCS play. Not to mentiona 2nd curse breaking Rewd Sox ring 3 years later. So the argument is valid for any of 3 choices.

But will he get in and allow for the 2nd debate??

First step to gaining Hall entry from borderline status isself cionfidence. Graceful campaigning might be second.. In the past, when asked about Hall candidacy, Old Dinner For One would tersely and directly offer, “No!” when asked if he thought he had a shot. The career wins are kinda low, but the peripherals validate Curt’s terrific career, and it was marked with the several post season ventures, mostly heroic. He’s hardly a first ballot shoo in, but far more debatable than “NO!.” And if you don’t believe in yourself, who ya gonna call?

Still not shy to offer opinions, Schilling offered up some views on the announced ballot yesterday. The lack of enthusiasm for the steroiud classmates was honest, but perhaps politically, Schill might have been better off with the graceful campaigning part of the script, dodging the subject, pointing out it wasn’t his vote. Instead, he was not hesitant to denounce the roid boy cause for all the reasons we’ve heard about cheaters. But when the subject came to him, it was good to see Curt having graduated from a point where he had NO’d his way to believing he was anti-Schilling.

This time, Schilling was a little more open minded… Here’s what he said, via Hardball Talk.

As for his own candidacy, Schilling wasn’t making any guesses. He’s considered a borderline candidate by many and said it’s too hard to predict a process Schill called “schizophrenic.”

“I honestly have no idea,” he said. “I haven’t won a game or struck out a hitter in five years. I did what I did. I had a chance and I interacted with a lot of guys over the years in the media that voted for the Hall of Fame and it’s schizophrenic in many ways.

“Unfortunately there are people that take this process as a personal platform to write an article. I know a writer who did not vote for Nolan Ryan to protest Don Sutton not getting in the first time. I know of writers that have intentionally not voted for players they didn’t like.”

I like that aspect of the approach better. Not a whole lot, mind you. Hopefully, it helps him get in. Even if he dons a Dback, or Red Sox cap, at least the ’93 Phils would have representation in C’town. You’d rather have the ring and never had to face Joe Carter, but it’s not a terrible consolation prize. I doubt a humity presentation would spur Curt on. He was terrific, and thatshould be accented.

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